My Own Kind Place
by The Cry-Wank Kid
Summary: Sequel to "Somewhere Clean and Kind". The day he became a ghost from Tate's perspective, as well as a look into his close relationship with Nora.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This chapter might feel a little slow. It's more about explanation, backstory, and thoughts than it is about action. It will pick up a lot in the next chapter.**

* * *

_Nora Anne Montgomery_

_February 11, 1897 - October 4, 1926_

_Beloved wife and mother. At rest._

I trace the lettering with my finger, feeling where moss has filled parts of the inscription. Almost seven decades of weather has begun to wear it down, making it harder to read. Another seven and it will probably be little more than blank stone with the slight ghosts of unreadable words visible, if you squint. _Mother. _But she isn't, not anymore. I know how much she wants to be. _At rest. _That part's a lie, too.

"I'm so sorry, Nora..." I whisper. It's early, cold, and the drugs this morning have dulled my emotions to the point where I know they're there but I can't quite feel them. Something between my chest and my brain isn't connecting. But that's for the best.

I lay the white rose at the foot of her grave. It isn't the first time I've brought her flowers. "I couldn't tell you... you would have tried to stop me..."

I kiss the stone gently and get up, making my way across the cemetery to a different grave, one with the dirt still packed fresh around it.

I stand. His headstone is so shiny compared to Nora's, the inscription so legible and new.

_Beauregard Hugo Langdon_

_April 12, 1975 - March 13, 1994_

_Suffer, little children, to come unto me_

Even through the druggy haze I feel rage grip me, swift and sudden, tightening my hands into fists. _Suffer. _He only suffered because they made him. They chose that for him. It wasn't his fucking destiny.

"Beau..." I say through clenched teeth, my voice shaking with what I know must be fury, "Beau, you didn't deserve this. Any of this...

..your heart was _good_!" I scream, kicking a nearby tree as hard as I can. I turn, panting, my knuckles white. "You should have been beautiful... you should have had a life... a _real_ life! Not locked away in the attic like a shameful secret, in chains! Not smothered to death by that...

...that _cocksucker!" _I'm punching the tree now, my fists bloody. "God _fucking_ damn him! And nobody believes me that he fucking _did_ it!"

I turn away again, spent, and sink down to my knees in front of the stone. I run a gentle hand over the top of it, the white rage inside of me giving way to what has to be grief. I'm sure of it. A week and a half ago I attended my own brother's funeral. I didn't cry. I haven't cried. Maybe because I'm a monster. Maybe because I wouldn't dare give Larry the satisfaction of seeing that. Maybe just because I'm angry, so fucking angry that it blots out any sadness I might feel, deadening it like heavy ink on fragile paper.

"You died... loved, Beauregard," I whisper, my voice breaking even though my eyes are dry. "In spite of all this shit, you've gotta know that..." My voice isn't my own. It is high, keening, a child's.

I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. I'm not sure if the blood I see is from there or from where I punched the tree. I stand up.

"But you know what, Beau? I'm gonna make things right for you. I'm gonna make that fucker pay for what he did to you." I give a small laugh that's more bitter than anything. The closest thing to delight that I've felt in a long time creeps up in me as the idea takes hold. "Cause I have some time before school this morning, and I know where I can get a tank of gasoline..."

I take one last glance at Beau's grave as I'm walking away. He isn't a ghost in the house like Nora is. I don't know why. Addie pretends to see him, but I know she's just sad. If he were there, he'd appear to me, right? Besides, I want him to be somewhere different, somewhere restful and lovely.

I smile. "He's gonna know exactly what if felt like to be you..."

* * *

Last summer a barn swallow built its nest in the awning above my family's porch. First I saw speckled eggs, then one day there were tiny mouths. Soon the baby birds were awkward and fuzzy, swooping up and down out of the nest in attempts to fly. I stood outside early one morning and watched them. I wanted so much good for them that they made my heart hurt.

Nora appeared beside me unexpectedly, her hand stroking the back portion of my hair. "My Tate has a kind, tender heart," she said gently.

I wiped my eyes. No one had ever called me "My Tate" before. My mother, in her good moods, had drawled "my beautiful son, my perfect son", but there was nothing metaphorical or unconditional about it. It was spoken with rough desperation, and the barely concealed threat of harm if I didn't stay that way.

It wasn't true, though, what Nora said. The flip side to those moments of nearly unbearable tenderness were moments where rage made my vision go white. The voice that came out of me then wasn't mine; it was lower, more primal, pulled mucky from somewhere deep and dark. I couldn't recognize it or control it. I could hit. I could swear and break things and threaten and _scream_ like I'd never heard anyone do. I'd go on like that until the white cleared and I saw again. It wasn't always towards the people who deserved it.

That was the worst thing. I spent so many dim evenings with Nora on the couch in the sitting room, my face nestled in her shoulder, sniffling as I agonized over being capable of such cruelty and then of such frailty and empathy. The combination and the ensuing guilt was all too painful. I hated it, I told her, my big stupid tears dripping all over the fronts of her beautiful dresses. I wished that I could just be one or the other.

She stroked my hair. She didn't say much then; she just listened.

Things like that were what made it so hard for me when she started to go away sometimes. I didn't know where she went to in her mind, just that she'd be wild eyed and babbling about babies, incapable of a coherent sentence and unconscious of her surroundings. She cried. The first time that she didn't recognize me, I ran upstairs and sobbed in the shower, punching the sliding door until it cracked. The one stability and comfort in my life had been pulled out from under me. I felt like I was falling.

I was angry at Nora for slipping away when I still needed her and even angrier at myself for not having the strength to support her when she was weak. Not when that was all she'd ever done for me. The episodes weren't frequent, but they grew, a slow and steady climb upward, in their frequency. That terrified me so much I could hardly admit it. I knew from the first time that I would do anything in my power to bring her back to me, to make her happy again. Anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: This chapter contains a first-person account of a school shooting, and at a few points is graphic. If that kind of thing upsets you, please don't read. **

**I also took a few liberties with the library scene-it's not exactly like it was on the show, but it works for this narrative. You should go back and read "Somewhere Clean and Kind" if you want it all to really tie in.**

* * *

"Tate!" Larry looks...almost _happy_ to see me, to the point where if I weren't so high, I might actually feel bad. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

Then the memories flash back behind my eyes: Beauregard screaming and then falling silent in the attic, me running up the rickety pull-out stairs but being too late... Knowing he was gone when I got there. Leaving quickly, before Larry saw me, back to my bedroom. Not to cry. I was furious. The red pouring from my arms that night, over and over again.

And then, two days later in the school counselor's office: pounding my fists on her desk, first telling my story and then screaming it, when she still wouldn't listen. Her pushing a Kleenex box at me, hoping to encourage some kind of acceptable emotion, but I had no tears to shed. I was _furious_. The police a day later taking my claim about as seriously as she had.

And just like that, it's white again. Except it's a cold white this time, not like the hot rages I've known so many times before. I don't yell, I don't hit. I'm calm. I douse the fucker with gasoline and light a match.

He will live. But they're all going to look at him the way they looked at Beau now.

As I flee among the ensuing mayhem, for a split second I hear Nora's voice, faint and thin, in the back of my head: _My Tate has a kind, tender heart. _

_She wouldn't think so now_, I almost think, but I won't let myself. I can't. I have other shit to attend to.

* * *

I pace the empty hallway, whistling. I know the secret. _Geez_, I think, _these drugs sure_ _helped take the edge off_. I feel almost good.

And then I see, by chance, the first one. I turn, smiling on the inside though I know my face is frozen, numb. He looks at me, a fear I barely register, and I am judge, jury, and executioner-the noble war, the merciful decider. I cock it, pull the trigger, and in one motion send his kind heart home.

* * *

By the time I get to the library, I can feel the drugs starting to wear off a little, making me feel slightly manic, but I have to keep my wits about me. I can't fuck this up now. I can feel some vague semblance of emotion start to creep back up inside me, guilt or fear or maybe sadness. I try hard to ignore it and to not look at their faces.

They sneak in though, from the corners of my eyes. Some cry, some plead, some ask why, and some just sit there frozen. One girl pisses herself. I don't feel sad.

I get to Amir. He's crying, trembling as he looks up at me. I know he wants to ask why, but he doesn't. I want to shake him, screaming at him not to look at me like that. _Oh_ _God_, I think, _I'm losing it._ _For fucks sake_, _Tate, keep it together. It's just a few more. _

His image before me goes blurry, and to my own complete shock I feel a tear-just one-run down my cheek. "Hey..." I whisper as it falls, my voice shaking more than I mean for it to, "it's okay..."

And in an instant, he is gone, too.

I look down. I shouldn't, but I do. My hands were shaking so badly that I missed his head and instead shot his whole jaw off, the place between his mouth and neck now just a bloody mess. I kneel before him, placing my hand on his still shoulder and resting my forehead against his. A dry sob, rough and heaving, rips through my torso. I kiss him gently on the top of his head. Then I stand, and I turn.

* * *

When the SWAT team shows up in my bedroom, I am waiting. I am high again, invincible, emotionless. I look right into the eyes of the man in the center and make a gun of my fingers, pointing to my temple. I feel the corners of my mouth turn up. _Bang_. I reach under my pillow for my real gun, hoping to go out by my own hand, but before I'm able I feel the hail of bullets hit. The blood rises, a tidal wave, up in my throat. I fall. I think I hear one of them ask me why I did it. The last sound I remember is my mother crying.

_Huh... So she did love me, on some level..._ I think, my last mortal thought before it all goes black.

* * *

I'm not sure how long I was gone for. When I wake up I'm sitting against my bedroom's far wall, watching men cover my body with a sheet. The first noise out of me is a panicked gasp. I don't know why-I knew this would happen. But nothing can prepare you for when it really does. I'm surprised at how physical everything still feels. My high is gone, but all the physicality I'd thought belonged solely to mortals is still here-the weight of my body, the tactile sensation of the wall against the back of my arms, the salty taste in my mouth and the slight congestion in the back of my nose.

"Is that my body?!" I scream, my voice like a shrill, panicked animal, a lunatic. "Is that my body?!" They can't see or hear me.

I start to hyperventilate. On some level, I guess, I didn't really believe this would happen. Nora, the house, all of it... deep down I thought I was just crazy. I thought I'd invented a friend to comfort me because I was lonely, invented an afterlife for myself because I couldn't stand the thought of black and nothing.

The stories that you hear about disasters are always the same. _I held it together, _theysay_, until I saw my mom. Then I broke down completely._ That has never been my story. I knew it never would be.

But when Nora appears before me, suddenly I understand. I take one look at her and I am hysterical, sobbing, a mess. I'm crying in a way that I didn't think someone like me had the capacity to cry.

"Here, darling..." she whispers, kneeling before me. She hands me her handkerchief, but I just twist it in my hands. I'm not even human enough, in this moment, for that small comfort. I don't deserve it.

Seeing this, she takes it back from me and presses it to my face, first one side and then the other. I can see big wet spots form on it. I don't know how I'm capable of creating those. _Psychopath_. She continues, wiping away my tears as they fall, while I try in vain to explain.

It has hit me now, in one big, horrible realization, that I was wrong. There was no noble war. And those kids weren't like me-they were happy, thriving, hopeful, salvageable. They didn't want to die. I didn't save them. All I did today was kill fifteen people and break the hearts of countless others.

"I..." I gasp, "I don't understand..." I sob again. "I don't understand..." I hear myself take a deep, sharp breath, attempting. "I was so sure of all of it... so sure... And now... now it all seems so wrong, it all seems different..."

"Shh..."

I swallow hard. "You don't understand, Nora... I killed people..."

Her free hand goes to my hair, entangling, petting. "I know, my Tate, I know..."

I sniffle. "I was afraid that you wouldn't think I have a kind heart anymore..."

Nora shakes her head, pulling me in close. I slump over, spent, against her chest-feeling the fine, worn linen of her dress; smelling, through my snotty nose, a scent like vanilla and lilacs, a perfume long discontinued on department store shelves.

"It was just that I-"

"-Shh," she cuts me off gently. "Just cry."

I do. She holds me, rocking me gently and stroking my hair as the men take my body away.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I decided to split the ending of this into two chapters, though I'd originally planned on one. You might recognize a modified canon line from Tate's "you died loved" speech to Violet here, which will make more sense in the next chapter. **

**Also, this is really, really sentimental. I know, first I traumatized you with violence and now I'm drowning you in sentimental, Dickensian tears. Too bad! ;) Put on your leather pants, Draco, cause shit is about to get cry-wanky...**

* * *

I don't know how long we sit like that for. All I know is that I cried so much that my eyes sting and my back is sore from sobbing. I cried for the kids I killed today, for their friends and their families and for the horrible, cutting guilt I feel. I cried finally for Beauregard, my gentle brother who was doomed from the beginning-for the shame that I feel about not being able to cry for him sooner and about how the revenge that I took on his part didn't reflect his heart at all. But mostly I cried because I miss him. I cried for my mother, who I know must have been hurt once herself, and for Addie, who I know must be so scared and sad right now. Everything I'd been trying my hardest not to think about, terrified to think about... I let myself think and feel it all completely. It all made me cry, and I let it.

She held me. I was safe. I died loved.

I take a long, shaky breath and lay silent against Nora's damp chest for a minute. Then I pull away gently. I back away slightly because I realize that I'm practically sitting in her lap, the way I did when I was little-a funny sight now that I'm seventeen and taller than her.

I wipe my face one more time with Nora's handkerchief before giving it back to her. She smiles sadly. "Better?"

"As much as I'm gonna be," I joke flatly, "I'm dead."

She's silent. I lean back against the wall, shutting my eyes. "I'm so tired..."

"Then sleep."

I look around the now-empty room, cringing. "Not here..."

She leads me to the spare room at the end of the hallway. I realize that we're alone in the house now. The SWAT team is gone, and my mom and Addie are probably at the police station or the hospital. I shake my head. I can't think about that stuff any more right now.

It's the smallest room in the house, mostly empty except for a twin bed with a patchwork quilt on it and an old, folksy-looking painting of a farm scene hanging above it. With my heavy limbs I climb into the bed, resting the back of my head on one of the stiff pillows. Nora sits in the chair beside the bed. I look up at her, fighting the sleep in my eyes.

"Nora... I didn't mean to sound ungrateful... I _am_ better, so much better, Nora... I mean... thank you. For holding me like that. Thank you so much for everything..."

"Of course, my Tate." She pauses, looking upward, and purses her lips. Oh God, I hope she doesn't cry.

"Tate, I have always felt a special... affinity for you, darling. Ever since you were a little boy. You had a shy smile, and your hair, remember? Your hair was so fair it was practically white..."

I bite my lip, now just hoping _I_ don't cry again.

"I used to read to you," she continues, "remember? I... I could again, if you want, though I suppose that's silly. You're a young man now, and-"

I cut her off. "-Could you?" My voice is quiet, hoarse. I feel a little stupid.

One hand stroking my dirty hair, she reads to me from an old copy of The Wind In The Willows that I can only assume was her own, in her life. I spent today in a black trench coat, putting drugs up my nose and shooting kids dead, here in this era of Nirvana and Mortal Combat. How strange now, to drift off to sleep with the images of peaceful rivers and vaguely Edwardian storybook animals in my head.

* * *

I don't know how long I sleep. I haven't yet gotten used to how time feels as a ghost, and when I see light outside the window I'm not even sure if it's the next day or not. I feel good, though-purged from crying and rested from sleep. I don't feel perfect, but I feel better. I feel like I can go on.

As if she sensed me waking up, Nora walks in, looking determined and holding a pair of my pants and a button-down shirt over one arm. "Put these on and come downstairs, dear," she says, putting my clothes down on the bed and frowning slightly at them.

"These will have to do... I thought perhaps you could borrow something from Charles, but you and he aren't the same size."

_Thank God_, I think to myself. I've seen Charles, her husband, in photos before, and have no interest in wearing his clothes. Wait, why does she want me dressed nicely now, anyway?

I sit up, knowing better than to argue with Nora when she's got that hell-bent look on her face. But I do need to talk to her.

"Nora, wait."

She turns in the doorway. I'm suddenly nervous.

I swallow, rubbing my nose with my wrist. "Nora, I've always kind of thought of you as-as a kind of mother, I guess. And now that I'm... you know, gone... well, I wanted to ask you if you would be that, for real, for me." I look down at the old patchwork, afraid to read her face. "I'm sorry. I know I'm not what you wanted..."

"Oh, my Tate..." She sits down on the bed, taking my face in her hands. It feels salty and tight still from tears. "You have _always_ been my child..."

A tear runs down her cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb, biting my lip.

She places her forehead against mine. "You are _exactly_ what I wanted," she whispers.

"R-really?" Fuck, being dead makes me emotional.

"Really." Nora stands up abruptly, wiping her eyes. "Now enough of this sentimentality, child. You simply can't cry again, I couldn't bear it. Wash your face and get dressed now; they're all waiting for you downstairs."

_They? _


	4. Chapter 4

**It took me a long time to write this last chapter. I just had this weird image of all the other ghosts throwing a celebration to welcome Tate, and this concept of Murder House as a place of respite, for some of them, if only because their mortal lives were so messed up. But I also didn't want it to be too nicey-nicey or perfect. Cause come on... it's Murder House. **

**In the end we see foreshadowing to his relationship with Violet seventeen years later. Whether you see this as sweet or ominous depends on your perception, I guess. I'll leave it open. Is Tate's resolve, at the very end, sweet or scary? Or maybe a mix of both? Let me know in the comments! **

* * *

Downstairs, the house feels completely different. It seems to be buzzing and stirring with all kinds of vague energy that I never sensed before. The stillness is gone; in it's place is a sense of constant movement and happening. It feels... _alive_ now. The irony isn't lost on me.

Nora told me to meet her in the back garden, but I get distracted when I hear the soft, garbled singing coming from my sister's room. Familiar singing. Addie.

I run excitedly to the doorway and then stop short, remembering that the last time she saw me I was being hauled out of the house on a stretcher, covered in a sheet. She might be scared of me, and that's if she can see me at all.

I stand in the doorway for a second, messing with the sleeves of my nice shirt and trying to think of what to say. Addie looks up at me, slightly annoyed.

"What took you so long?"

"Oh, Addie!" I clamor in and throw my arms around her, new tears rushing to my eyes. "My beautiful girl... Oh my God, you can see me..." I squeeze her and rock her in my arms. She still feels real to me. She's still here.

"No, duh," she says, rolling her eyes at me. "You are such a big baby, Tate."

"I know, I know, sorry..." I blink the tears away, running a sleeve under my eyes. It's better this way. Nora will kill me all over again if I show up to this thing sniffling, whatever it is she's got planned.

Addie's not scared. She must not know, I think, before realizing that for a moment _I_ couldn't remember how I got here. What I did.

_Oh God,_ I think, _I'm forgetting. I'm starting to forget. _That can happen, I've heard. But I can't forget; I can't let myself. Those kids I killed deserve at least that much from me. I deserve to remember._  
_

I'm about to say something more when I hear movement in the attic. I almost don't dare get my hopes up.

"Beau...?"

Addie leads me to the attic door. We pull the steps down, and a red ball drops at my feet.

He _is_ here.

We climb the steps, and for a minute or two the three of us wrestle on Beau's cot, laughing. My siblings' laughter is the sound of joy distilled, and mine is that plus the absurdity of this moment-the Langdon kids: deformed, retarded, and psycho, two of them ghosts, sharing the kind of warm family moment that could make a Norman Rockwell painting jealous.

"Adelaide?!" It all stops abruptly when I hear my mother calling. My heart sinks at the sound of her voice-so broken, so guarded, so hoarse. "Addie, I don't know what in God's name you're doing up there, laughing like a damn fool while I plan your brother's funeral, but I want you down here this instant!"

The words are like they've always been, but the tone is different, marred by thinly disguised tears. I feel awful. I'm still fucking pissed at her, and I don't know if that will ever change, but I also know I have to talk to her eventually. Just not right now. Maybe I'll be ready in a few more days... or months.

* * *

Nora meets me at the back door, grinning. "Close you eyes," she says, taking me by the shoulders.

When I open them, the back garden is crowded with lawn chairs and tables. It looks like a wedding reception, with flowers and wine. People are sitting in the chairs, lots of people, and all of them grinning at me. Some I don't recognize. Their clothes are dated, suggesting eras that I don't remember. I recognize Charles, Nora's husband, though until now I had only seen him in pictures. I see Lorraine, Larry's wife who killed herself and their two daughters when he confessed to cheating. The little girls are here, too. In an instant I recognize my dad, looking fresh out of 1983, and a few tables over I see Moira, our maid, who disappeared when I was little. _That's_ a story I know I've got to hear.

"Go ahead. They've all been waiting for you." Nora whispers.

They all start clapping. Nora pats me gently on the shoulder before going to sit down, and I stand there for a second, dumbfounded. Then I begin to walk.

I walk at first in a daze through the maze of chairs and tables, and then slowly, I feel myself grinning. My grin grows and spreads until I'm laughing, laughing at the absurdity of this afterlife I don't deserve-how it's strange and confusing and moving and sad, and thrilling and in a weird way, beautiful.

I take my seat beside Nora at a center table. She pushes a cloth napkin at me, and I realize that tears are streaming down my face. I use the napkin to dry them, feeling slightly embarrassed and wondering what the deal is with all this crying. I hope it's not just part of being a ghost. I'd really rather not be a ridiculous puddle of tears forever.

The garden looks unlike I've ever seen it. The flowers seem bigger somehow, brighter, the light all around them vaguely golden.

"Is this some kind of heaven?" I ask quietly.

Nora gives me one of her famed smile-grimace hybrids. "Not quite, darling. They're all on their best behavior right now, but rest assured you'll see the worst of them.

...Oh, but don't worry! It's not all bad, either. And I shall be here." Her hand goes to my hair, and her voice drops. "My Tate... I always thought that perhaps... _I_ could take the best care of you." Her face crumples slightly. "...from a purely selfish standpoint. But still, I always hoped, somehow, that you'd grow up..."

We hold hands under the table like teenagers. I stare down at that, her red-tipped fingers and all those jewels on her hands. My nails are bitten.

"I'm so sorry..." I whisper.

She is silent a moment, her expression hard to read. "You died crying," she says.

I reach for my napkin again. _Fuck_.

"You weren't alone, you know. I was there when you died. I know you couldn't see me, but I was. I had you right in my arms, alright? You did _not_ die alone."

I don't ever want to let go of her hand. I attempt to wipe my nose with my free hand, am slightly uncoordinated and marginally unsuccessful, and then realize that everyone is totally silent and staring right at me. I look at Nora.

"I love you."

God, I am forever terminally awkward.

"I love you, too," she says, smiling.

And there, well that's just the thing. Don't you get it? I am _ridiculous_. I tried to play the charismatic psychopath, but that was _such_ bullshit, you know? I am neither. I feel uncontrollably and I mess up constantly. I go to school in my dad's old clothing. I get my feelings hurt and cry all over my desk in the middle of history class. I hide out in the library, my big jacket on, reading about birds.

And I have always, always alienated people. You could say that's my one true talent, I guess. I have always been too desperate for comfort, for love. And so I always manage to say or do the wrong thing at the wrong time, or the wrong thing altogether, and make everybody leave.

But she has always wanted me, as raw and needy and awkward as I am. She protected me for as long as she could, and when the monsters grew too big for her to fight anymore, she held me in the wake of their destruction. She saw through my bravado. She didn't try to force its wall down. She just comforted me when it inevitably crumbled. Against her own best interest she tried to save me, and then when she couldn't, she held me while the light went out. She did her best to welcome me to the other side, to make the transition easier.

She loved me. And I know in this moment that I want to pay that forward more than anything. I want to be that to somebody. I just _have_ to.

"...I guess I'll never fall in love now, huh?" I ask once the moment passes. _And I'll never have sex,_ I add silently, regretfully. I had really wanted to do that.

"Come now, you don't know that. Someone will come along for you someday. I just have a feeling."

"Hope she wants to die."

We both laugh wryly. It's a better choice than crying.

People are up and moving around now, some coming forward to hug me. I look over at Nora. She is laughing, saying something to Charles. She is completely present at this moment. She is lucid, whole. _Please_, I think, a silent prayer to a God I'm not sure I believe in, _please just let her stay like this. I will do anything in my power to keep her like this, to keep her all here. _

I break free from the arms of a girl in a nurse uniform to see my dad standing behind her, his face unreadable. We say nothing, but he moves toward me. I think I see tears in his eyes. I go into his embrace, leaning my head on his shoulder for a second and staring, with my sore eyes, into all that golden light.

* * *

My name is Tate Langdon. I was born in the winter of 1977 and I died in the spring of 1994. I am seventeen always, a ghost in a place called Murder House. It isn't perfect, but it's my own kind place. I am a mass murderer. I can't let myself forget that; I have to keep reminding myself.

I know my story must look pretty sad from the outside. And it is, I guess, but it isn't all bad. I knew love. And it's my job now to someday, somehow show that same love to somebody. That's my noble mission. I don't know who they are or if they're even born yet, but I know that someday I'll find them. I have to believe that. It's all that keeps me sane in this place, some days.

And when I do find them, or they find me, by God, I will never let _anyone_, or _anything_, hurt them. I'll see to that.

**The End**


End file.
